Glacier adventures.

A few weeks ago, Shane and I traveled to Glacier National Park in Montana. It has been on our list for a while, and oh my, was it amazing.

We flew into Denver, CO rented a little Volkswagen to cruise around in, and traveled for quite a while to get there!   Montana is a HUGE state in case you haven't noticed.  For most of the drive we were not sure if we would ever see another town, gas station, or human being!  Glacier totally redeemed itself once we got there though!

Here were some of our sights on the way.... 

Prairie dogs... and lots of them.

fields of canola...

and sheep!

We finally made it!

 

Being late June in Glacier, there were several impassable trails due to avalanches, and a lot of melting!Iceberg trail(what we were most excited about hiking)was closed, so we found an alternative close by.And if I only had more photos to capture what happened next.  We knew we were in 'bear country' and would probably come across a grizzly bear, but we were really hoping to only see one from the car:) 200 ft into this trail, we stumbled upon this fellow, not walking away...but staring us down from 8 feet away! We stayed calm (or Shane did) and we slowly backed away.  The bear started walking towards us still staring. Then, he just turned around and started walking down the trail and into the woods. Standing there shaking, we waited until he was far enough out of sight and continued on! SO.. the photos below are of the bear walking AWAY, and when I felt safe enough to take a picture:) I've never hiked so cautiously after this!

 

rather windy...

 

I was always asking Shane to help me swap lenses on my camera and hold them while I grabbed a photo:)

 

 And... the mountain goats.  I was most looking forward to seeing these animals! This rocky cliff is called the Goat Lick.  Mountain goats and their young travel miles to come here and lick the mineral deposits off of the rocks. It's wild!

 

 

 On our way home from Glacier, we decided to go back through The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.  We took a trip here during the fall a few years ago that we LOVED. See our pics from that trip here.

 Taggart Lake Trail in Grand Teton is one of our favorites, so we hiked it again!

moose

We watched the sunset on the Tetons, stayed in Jackson,WY for the evening and drove the rest of the way back to Denver.  We had so much fun on these adventures and celebrated 4 years of marriage while we were there!